From American Cinematographer, This Old House by David E. Williams (August 1999)
"My general lighting approach for the entire film was to be relatively soft on the front of the faces, and then use backlight to give things shape and direction. That method helped quite a bit, given what we were doing with the camera. It would have been interesting to try more dramatic techniques with the lighting— using higher, more frontal lighting and cutting more—but we didn’t have the time to do it. Jan wanted between 18 and 20 setups a day, with one camera, while constantly switching between Steadicam, cranes, normal 35mm cameras on dollies, and VistaVision for effects work. With that many setups, we had about 20 minutes to light each shot, so we ended up doing much more pre-rigging than I normally would."
- Karl Walter Lindenlaub, ASC, BVK
I read, discuss, and discover new things about cinematography everyday. Most of it, I consider incredibly interesting. Everyday I will share one of those things, maybe more if I have time.
Showing posts with label soft light. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soft light. Show all posts
24.7.09
Robert Primes: Chimera Soft Light
From American Cinematographer, Big City Girl by Stephanie Argy (February 1999)
In spite of these difficulties, Primes has managed to carefully maintain the photographic approach that Reeves wants for the show.
"Almost all of the light is soft, and it's very often shining through Chimeras, or frames of 1000H, Chimera cloth, 216, 250 or opal. Those are the diffusion materials we use... One of the nice things about hard light is that you can really shape it. But how do you cut soft light?"
In recent years, the cinematographer has found the answer in Chimera's honeycomb grids, which attach in front of the company's flexible softboxes to concentrate the light, rather than letting it scatter. The grids come in 30-, 60- and 90-degree increments, referring to the angles to which the light is allowed to spread.
"In the past, I was using the 60s most of the time, the 90s some of the time, and the 30s not very much. Marshall [gaffer Marshall Adams] started using the 30-degree grid, which takes a tremendous amount of light. You need 10,000 watts to get anything out of it, and by golly, there it is, just a soft little spotlight. You can have someone in a little glow, and light nowhere else... Our extra smallest Chimeras use 650W tweenies, while our largest use 20Ks."
- Robert Primes, ASC30.5.09
Alar Kivilo: Helium Balloons
From American Cinematographer, The Root of All Evil by Jay Holben (December 1998)
"We used a helium balloon light for the night exteriors on the roadside. It was logistically tricky location because we were on a small road with two snow fields on either side, so there was no place to drive in a crane or a Condor. The balloon seemed to be a perfect solution. We could fly it up so that it would hover just above the road, and then hide the black cable in the night sky. What I didn't expect was that it got really windy during the night we were shooting. I was operating the second camera, looking at the wide shot of the sheriff's truck approaching, and as the wind was gusting I kept seeing the balloon getting lower and lower in the frame. It never quite dropped into the picture area, but it made me very nervous. Then, at one point in the middle of the first take, the wind blew the balloon into a power line and it made a huge spark. Thank God no one was hurt and there was no damage, but we did lose quite a bit of time. We really hadn't factored the wind into the equation, and because of the white snow surrounding the area, we really couldn't attach extra lines. I thought the light that the balloon provided was perfect-- a nice ambient glow and a beautiful night softness-- but I was very uncomfortable with it after that first night. On the second night, when we returned to shoot the reverses, I went with a more traditional approach."
- Alar Kivilo, CSC
"We used a helium balloon light for the night exteriors on the roadside. It was logistically tricky location because we were on a small road with two snow fields on either side, so there was no place to drive in a crane or a Condor. The balloon seemed to be a perfect solution. We could fly it up so that it would hover just above the road, and then hide the black cable in the night sky. What I didn't expect was that it got really windy during the night we were shooting. I was operating the second camera, looking at the wide shot of the sheriff's truck approaching, and as the wind was gusting I kept seeing the balloon getting lower and lower in the frame. It never quite dropped into the picture area, but it made me very nervous. Then, at one point in the middle of the first take, the wind blew the balloon into a power line and it made a huge spark. Thank God no one was hurt and there was no damage, but we did lose quite a bit of time. We really hadn't factored the wind into the equation, and because of the white snow surrounding the area, we really couldn't attach extra lines. I thought the light that the balloon provided was perfect-- a nice ambient glow and a beautiful night softness-- but I was very uncomfortable with it after that first night. On the second night, when we returned to shoot the reverses, I went with a more traditional approach."
- Alar Kivilo, CSC
Vilmos Zsigmond: Classical Painters
From American Cinematographer, A Poignant Pas de Deux by Bob Fisher (December 1998)
"If you are doing a Frankenstein movie or Star Wars, it doesn't have to be realistic-- in fact, it should be more impressionistic or surrealistic. If you are telling a story about real people, the classical painters gave us a good model. They never lit anyone badly, and they never used soft light. They always had nice modeling light on the faces and darker backgrounds so the people would stand out."
- Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC
"If you are doing a Frankenstein movie or Star Wars, it doesn't have to be realistic-- in fact, it should be more impressionistic or surrealistic. If you are telling a story about real people, the classical painters gave us a good model. They never lit anyone badly, and they never used soft light. They always had nice modeling light on the faces and darker backgrounds so the people would stand out."
- Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC
28.5.09
Eduardo Serra: Softlight & Contrast
From American Cinematographer, Dream Weavers by Ron Magid (November 1998)
"I do want modeling and contrast in the image, so my main goal is always to reconcile these two things that people might think are contradictory: softlight and contrast. That's my obsession."
- Eduardo Serra, AFC
"I do want modeling and contrast in the image, so my main goal is always to reconcile these two things that people might think are contradictory: softlight and contrast. That's my obsession."
- Eduardo Serra, AFC
22.5.09
Janusz Kaminski: Softlight, Flatlight, & China Balls
From American Cinematographer, Breaking Slavery's Chains by Stephen Pizzello (January 1998)
"Before we began shooting, I watched Queen Margot and Interview with a Vampire. Rousselot uses China balls a lot, and he underexposes in his color palette. All of his colors are a bit pastel, and he gets a bit of grain in the movie. Everything falls very softly into the shadows, and the actors' faces have a painterly quality. While watching his movies, David Devlin and I kept asking ourselves, 'How is he doing it?' We finally figured out that there was always a rather large distance between the object that he was photographing and the background, and that he was often using flat light. We started playing with that, using very flat, frontal lighting and moving the object that we were shooting away from the wall, so the shadows would fall away. We also underexposed by two stops. And sure enough, the magic started happening! It was like reaching another level."
- Janusz Kaminski
"We wanted to have a textural feeling in this film, and the way you'd normally achieve that is to use hard light, We were trying to do the same thing with soft light, which led us to light frontally with smaller units. That gave us patches of light, but we still had contrast in the scenes. If you start using side angles and off angles, things become a bit less painterly, because you don't see the falloff of the light wouldn't break. When you allow the intensity of the light to fall off on objects, it really brings you in form the darkness."
- David Devlin, Gaffer for Janusz on Amistad
"A long time ago I was playing with them, but I never really learned how to use them properly. On a few occasions I would grab a China Ball, look at it and say, 'Nah, I don't like it.' But on this movie we started playing with them again, and I think I've finally learned how to work with them a bit. China balls are very interesting, because you can move them up and down during a take; it becomes a very convenient way to light. But China balls are not really durable, and you still have to shape the light that you get from them. It's also problematic to attach them to C-stands, because they always sway."
- Janusz Kaminski
"If you put a normal China ball on the floor, it will just roll over and burn a hole in itself. To avoid that type of problem, our best boy, Larry Richardson, designed a new type of space light for this show."
- David Devlin, Gaffer for Janusz on Amistad
This variation of the typical paper lamp offered a light source that could be adjusted more easily, as well as a flat bottom to prevent it from rolling over. Richardson also equipped the new units with hard mounts so that they could be attached to C-stands with greater stability. He constructed 12 of these special lights, which were used in conjunction with normal China balls for many of the film's scenes.
"Before we began shooting, I watched Queen Margot and Interview with a Vampire. Rousselot uses China balls a lot, and he underexposes in his color palette. All of his colors are a bit pastel, and he gets a bit of grain in the movie. Everything falls very softly into the shadows, and the actors' faces have a painterly quality. While watching his movies, David Devlin and I kept asking ourselves, 'How is he doing it?' We finally figured out that there was always a rather large distance between the object that he was photographing and the background, and that he was often using flat light. We started playing with that, using very flat, frontal lighting and moving the object that we were shooting away from the wall, so the shadows would fall away. We also underexposed by two stops. And sure enough, the magic started happening! It was like reaching another level."
- Janusz Kaminski
"We wanted to have a textural feeling in this film, and the way you'd normally achieve that is to use hard light, We were trying to do the same thing with soft light, which led us to light frontally with smaller units. That gave us patches of light, but we still had contrast in the scenes. If you start using side angles and off angles, things become a bit less painterly, because you don't see the falloff of the light wouldn't break. When you allow the intensity of the light to fall off on objects, it really brings you in form the darkness."
- David Devlin, Gaffer for Janusz on Amistad
"A long time ago I was playing with them, but I never really learned how to use them properly. On a few occasions I would grab a China Ball, look at it and say, 'Nah, I don't like it.' But on this movie we started playing with them again, and I think I've finally learned how to work with them a bit. China balls are very interesting, because you can move them up and down during a take; it becomes a very convenient way to light. But China balls are not really durable, and you still have to shape the light that you get from them. It's also problematic to attach them to C-stands, because they always sway."
- Janusz Kaminski
"If you put a normal China ball on the floor, it will just roll over and burn a hole in itself. To avoid that type of problem, our best boy, Larry Richardson, designed a new type of space light for this show."
- David Devlin, Gaffer for Janusz on Amistad
This variation of the typical paper lamp offered a light source that could be adjusted more easily, as well as a flat bottom to prevent it from rolling over. Richardson also equipped the new units with hard mounts so that they could be attached to C-stands with greater stability. He constructed 12 of these special lights, which were used in conjunction with normal China balls for many of the film's scenes.
14.5.09
Emmanuel Lubezki: Artificial Sky
From American Cinematographer, Galloping Ghost by Stephen Pizzello (December 1999)
"One day we had a big meeting with everyone, and we talked about building everything at Leavesden Studios. When we went to England on the first scouting trip, they showed me the sets on the stages, and I thought they were joking-- all of the stage ceilings were really low, and the sets were less than 20' high. That created some big limitations, and as a result, I had to throw out my initial plans for the lighting. My first idea had been to employ huge sources, most of which would come from the back to create silhouettes, and to use very little fill light. However, the approach I eventually adopted worked out much better: I decided to create a huge toplight, which I had never done before. The stage ceilings were so low that we couldn't really hide lights in the greenbeds. Instead, we created a huge sense of sky for the exteriors shot in the stages. We installed over 500 space lights up in the ceiling, very close to each other, and then pumped smoke into the rafters to create a false sky and obscure the fixtures. That was, all of the light would seem to be coming from the sky, as it would in reality. Being low helped me because I was getting the stop I wanted, and it was easier to control the smoke."
- Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC
"One day we had a big meeting with everyone, and we talked about building everything at Leavesden Studios. When we went to England on the first scouting trip, they showed me the sets on the stages, and I thought they were joking-- all of the stage ceilings were really low, and the sets were less than 20' high. That created some big limitations, and as a result, I had to throw out my initial plans for the lighting. My first idea had been to employ huge sources, most of which would come from the back to create silhouettes, and to use very little fill light. However, the approach I eventually adopted worked out much better: I decided to create a huge toplight, which I had never done before. The stage ceilings were so low that we couldn't really hide lights in the greenbeds. Instead, we created a huge sense of sky for the exteriors shot in the stages. We installed over 500 space lights up in the ceiling, very close to each other, and then pumped smoke into the rafters to create a false sky and obscure the fixtures. That was, all of the light would seem to be coming from the sky, as it would in reality. Being low helped me because I was getting the stop I wanted, and it was easier to control the smoke."
- Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC
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